My oh my Google, do you ever need to pay more attention. Google today has forgotten to update its SSL certificates for gchat (online version), gmail, and adsense. As such if you use or visit any of the 3 services you will be greeted with a SSL warning.
As I was writing this post, the SSL for Gmail is back up to date, but adsense and gchat are still waiting for updated SSL certificates. Now this means a lot of users will not use or trust the services at the current time since well you are greeted with a pretty serious warning. So Google please update them already.
The new twitter homepage for not logged in users. The new homepage features live tweets of the latest craze, and see who is on twitter.
The new homepage is pretty nice since it offers a lot without leaving the page. This will greatly help with breaking events since top tweets will be automatically shown.
No longer is Chrome the lightweight secure, robust browser anymore. Now it’s simply a browser that tailors to the needs of Abobe. On top of that Chrome will automatically update the flash player in Chrome. Which means if there is a bug in the new flash, or an exploit well then bye-bye your computer.
I can’t believe that Google has chosen this direction. I was not highly disturbed by the automatic roll-out of Buzz because I have a small footprint on Google. This however shows that Google is not doing what the end user wants, but rather what it and its partners want.
Sure if this was an opt-in thing it would be fine, but its now a requirement to run the browser. Sure you can deny the acceptance of the flash player when it installs but you really at the point don’t have a chance. Instead of extending HTML5 video progress, it shows that it wants to help Adobe in its troubles.
“We believe this initiative will help our users in the following ways:
- When users download Chrome, they will also receive the latest version of Adobe Flash Player. There will be no need to install Flash Player separately.
- Users will automatically receive updates related to Flash Player using Google Chrome’s auto-update mechanism. This eliminates the need to manually download separate updates and reduces the security risk of using outdated versions.
- With Adobe’s help, we plan to further protect users by extending Chrome’s “sandbox” to web pages with Flash content.”
So has Google gone beyond its respectable limits yet again? Vote in the poll below.
Good news HTML5 video is getting another boost. Earlier CBS was caught found testing with a HTML5 video label iPad on its video stream. Well NYT’s said it will make HTML5 videos for iPad. As such Brightcove is also adding support for HTML5 video soon.
This is great news as the iPad does not support flash due to its buggy features, and its resource usage. It’s nice that major company’s are taking this seriously. Like YouTube/Vimeo the HTML5 video will probably be H.264 enabled due to Apple supporting its proprietary format.
I am sure this is news no PS3 Sony fan wants to hear: Sony removing support for Linux in its pre-slim models. While slim models never had the support, pre-slim models did have support to run a custom OS on the PS3. Well use you anyways. Sony will soon be removing the feature in an upcoming update.
Sony says that it is because of “security concerns” with users running a custom OS. Naturally this has PS3 users pissed off because Sony is removing a feature that many early PS3 users bought the device with. So starting April 1st with update 3.21 the feature will be turned off.
Apple provides a vastly detailed guided tour with all of its major products. The iPad is no exception. The iPad this turn around includes 11 guided tours including: safari, mail, photos, video, YouTube, iPod, iTunes, iBooks, keynote, pages, and numbers.
The vast amount of detail is highly recommend for anyone getting the device. Although if you own a mac or an iPhone it will be mostly a review. The videos are highly useful however. So check them out.
performance of Logic Pro 9 and Main Stage 2 when running in 64-bit mode.
printing reliability.
sleep and wake reliability when using Bonjour wake on demand.
a color issue in iMovie with HD content.
glowing, stuck, or dark pixels when viewing video from the iMac (Late 2009) built-in iSight camera.
an issue in which the Finder reports a -36 error when copying directories to a drive formatted as FAT32.
reliability of photo screen savers.
compatibility issues with OpenGL-based applications.
an issue in which shadows in PDF of Aperture book are black instead of gray.
an issue in which the microphone level in iChat may not increase the volume after reducing it to prevent a feedback event.
the reliability of certain third-party USB devices.
the Accounts preference pane can now limit login to members of groups hosted by a non-Apple directory service, such as Active Directory.
DNS server ordering as specified in Network Preferences and DNS reliability. For details about how Mac OS X v10.6 handles unresponsive DNS servers, see this article.
the reliability and compatibility of QuickTime X.
Data Collection: Mac OS X v10.6.3 can collect diagnostic and usage information from your Mac and send it to Apple for analysis automatically. The information is only collected with your explicit consent, and is submitted anonymously to Apple. For more details, see this article.
AirPort and wireless networking fixes for:
general reliability for wireless connections.
improvements to 802.1X reliability, including closed network connections , and WPA2.
sleep/wake reliability for current iMac models when connected to 2.4GHz wireless networks.
Date and Time fixes provided for:
Daylight Saving Time rules to reflect recent changes in areas including Argentina, Fiji, Pakistan, and Antarctica.
Directory Services fixes provided for:
an issue that could cause the system to become unstable or unresponsive when bound to an LDAP server using SSL.
an issue in which the 802.1X Loginwindow Profile is in place, but the wireless network is not available, directory authentication over Ethernet will now succeed.
File Services fixes provided for:
an issue that could prevent saving files from Microsoft Office 2008 to an SMB server volume.
issues copying, renaming or deleting files on an SMB server volume.
clear-text authentication enabling to an SMB file server.
iCal fixes provided for:
changing the invitation list for a single instance of a recurring event will no longer “un-book” the location of the meeting.
an issue in which new invitations on a Microsoft Exchange server might not appear in the Notification pane.
properly showing recurring Microsoft Exchange events which have a set end date. For details, see this article.
Mail fixes and improvements provided for:
an issue that causes background message colors to display incorrectly in Mail.
signing and encrypting messages, such as when using an Entrust PKI (Public Key Infrastructure).
synchronization of the “Sent” mailbox on a Microsoft Exchange server.
an issue that could cause Mail to delete mailboxes on a Microsoft Exchange server that is hosted behind an Internet load balancer.
Mobile Accounts fixes and improvements provided for:
home directory synchronization when the home directory is stored on an SMB file server.
properly warning mobile users in an Active Directory domain about upcoming password expiration.
creating a Mobile Account that uses smart card authentication, without using a command-line tool.
reliability in background synchronization.
MobileMe fixes and improvements provided for:
an issue in which movies could not be viewed in Safari when visiting www.me.com/gallery.
reliability of iDisk Sync.
reliability of syncing calendars.
Parental Control fixes and improvements provided for:
restoring Safari bookmarks functionality to parental controls users.
better handling of Safari bookmark management when using Parental Controls.
more reliable application launch restrictions when using Parental Control.
Rosetta fixes provided for:
an issue that prevented files with the # or & characters in their names from opening in Rosetta applications.
System Imaging fixes and improvements provided for:
the asr command, which now accepts the “–allow fragmented catalog” option, for restoring images that have a fragmented catalog file. For details, type man asr in Terminal.
the installer command, which can now be used to upgrade a Mac OS X v10.5 system with a QuickTime 7 Pro key installed to Mac OS X v10.6.
Time Machine fixes and improvements provided for:
reliability from Time Machine-to-Time Capsule backups, including multiple computers.
an issue with Time Machine in which system backups could be restored onto unsupported Mac configurations.
an issue in which a Time Machine backup might not work using an AirPort connection.
Xsan fixes and improvements provided for:
the reliability of Fibre channel connections to an Xserve RAID.
an issue that could cause the size of certain Fibre channel LUNs to be mis-reported.
Should I or should I not buy the new Apple iPad? Well there is simply no easy answer but not all hope is lost! CNET TV has complied the Top 5 reasons to get, and top 5 reasons to not get the Apple iPad:
The search engine world has pretty much stayed the same: there’s Google, AOL, Yahoo, Bing, Altavista, MSN, Dogpile and others. Well there is a new search engine that is better, and will NOT go down in flames like Cuil.
So whats different of Duck Duck Go? A lot actually such as:
It respects your privacy it does not keep any info at all about your searches. The only info it stores is anonymous statistics about how many times a search term has been used.
It has no annoying ad blocks.
Much less clutter then the rest of the search engines.
Zero click info (it means it actually gives you results to your questions).
I have only one problem with DDG: it does not show results of video’s/and/or pictures without having to search the result on external site (such as YouTube, or Flickr). Other than that DDG is easily a [insert search engine name here] replacement. So use DDG and you maybe pleased with the results .
With Google and Godaddy saying no the censor now China is launching its “censorship guide” for news media.
The rules are as such:
“News Section 1. Only use Central Government main media (website) content; do not use content from other sources
2. Reposting must not change title
3. News recommendations should refer to Central government main media websites
4. Do not produce relevant topic pages; do not set discussion sessions; do not conduct related investigative reporting;
5. Online programs with experts and scholars on this matter must apply for permission ahead of time. This type of self-initiated program production is strictly forbidden.
6. Carefully manage the commentary posts under news items.”
It basically outlaws blogs. You also can’t mention the world censorship, or censor, and you can’t show empathy to Google or any other company. Well am I glad this blog (and most others!) are hosted in a world where the Great Firewall of China can’t touch (except for there hackers). Naturally most blogs (including WordPress) are censored to Chinese users (aka fails to load).
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